


The End of this Endless Road

by brightlikeloulou



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, First Meetings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The Hilltop (Walking Dead)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 17:56:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18183860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightlikeloulou/pseuds/brightlikeloulou
Summary: Daryl was minutes away from meeting his end when a stranger emerged and saved his life.--Or, the fic where Daryl never reunited with the group after the prison fell, and meets Jesus out on the road.





	The End of this Endless Road

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy!

When the prison fell, Daryl was left alone. He made sure that everyone got out safe, helping as many as he could. He nearly got himself killed when he did a final check of the prison, trying his best to see if anyone was left behind (despite the voice in the back of his head that told him he was the one left behind), walkers cornered him, but he managed to escape.

He stayed in the woods close by afterward, wanting to return after a few days to see if anyone had returned. The day he went back, he stood atop the hill that looked down on the prison yards, he'd felt himself choke up as he looked down at the place that had finally begun feeling like a home, completely destroyed. The walls were done, the prison itself in ruins. He knew that there was no chance of him actually getting back inside.

He'd stood up there for what could have been an hour, simply watching the walkers that roamed the area. Just before he left, his eyes fell on the figure of Michonne. He watched her for several long minutes as she stood at the tree line on the opposite side of the prison to him, he could barely even make out that it was her. He'd let out a breath of relief as she began walking normally and judging by how the walkers didn't seem fazed by her, she must have disguised herself in walker guts. She walked with determination, and Daryl finally understood when he saw her come to a stop by a round, white ball and put her sword through it. He forced himself to look away when he realized that it was Hershel's decapitated head.

Michonne left soon after that, taking two walkers with her to keep her disguised. Daryl couldn't shout to her, it'd be writing his own death sentence with all the walkers that were around. He tried his best to follow her for the next couple of days, he had to circle the prison-wide to get to the same spot where she had been standing, and then successfully followed her tracks for the next few days before an entire night of solid downpour washed any trace of her away.

That had been the last sign of anyone in his group he'd seen.

Three months later, he was still on his own (apart from a brief couple of days he spent with a group called the claimers before recognizing what kind of people they were and abandoning them in the middle of the night), That was over two months ago and had been the last living people that he saw.

The first two months had been okay, his biggest problem was the places his mind wandered to in the middle of the night. He wondered if any member of his family was left alive, where they were, did they miss him? He missed them, more than he ever thought he would, and sometimes late at night, wherever he'd holed up, he couldn't stop the tears that leaked down his cheeks. The third month though was the hardest.

He'd lost his crossbow, and only caught game from traps, and all he could get from that was a rabbit or a squirrel every couple of days. He was rapidly losing weight and was almost always dehydrated from the summer heat, the bite of hunger gnawing at his stomach. He had a single backpack that remained glued to him at all times. Inside it, a torch, his lighter and pack of cigarettes he'd found, some spare clothes, some supplies for making traps, a blanket, his poncho that he'd grabbed the last time he went into the prison, it had been one of Judith's blankets in her crib and had been left behind when she was taken out of the prison.

He'd messed up his knee a few days back, wasn't sure how, but it was swollen, and he had a severe limp, couldn't move much faster than a walk. He still had his hunting knife for defense, but with how his knee was, it wasn't very safe for him to get up close and personal with walkers, he tried to avoid them at all costs, hoping what was done to his knee was too bad and that it would fix itself.

He'd been staying near the perimeter of an old town, looking for signs of trouble, and after deciding it was safe enough, he decided to make his way into, find a house that he could spend a few days in, rest his knee to see if it would make the swelling go down. He'd been inside the town for an hour, carefully lurking around and making sure that nobody but a couple of walkers were around.

He'd turned a corner, not thinking it through correctly. He hadn't eaten in almost a week and had had no water since the previous afternoon; he was weak and exhausted, and it was starting to affect his judgment. The corner had turned out to be full of walkers, two dozen, more, all turning their heads to him and growling. He'd immediately stumbled back, proceeded to trip over something on his clumsy feet, which sent him falling back into an abandoned trolley, smashing his head on the metal off it, and he watched as the trolley rolled down the road, going down a hill caused it to gain speed. He winced as slammed directly into an old abandoned car, ten, fifteen meters away.

Barely seconds later, as he was getting to his feet, the car alarm began to go off, and he let out a groan of frustration as he adjusted his grip on his knife, stabbing the first walker. Dread began to fill his stomach as he watched more walkers emerge from all around him, behind corners, getting up from the ground. He started stabbing those coming at him, tripping over their bodies and failing to regain his footing. He was getting dizzy, from hitting his head, from the dehydration, the hunger.

He let out a scream of frustration, stabbing another, barely catching himself when he stumbled. The numbers had doubled, there had to be at least fifty of them now; too many for him to take out with a single knife, especially with the state that he was in.

He felt walker latch down on his shoulder, and let out a cry, spinning around and stabbing it, checking for a moment to see if it had torn his clothes, broke the skin; it hadn't.

His vision began to fail him, going blurry. He got two more walkers down before he swayed on his feet, he saw something from the corner of his eye, tried to focus on it, found it was moving too quickly and gracefully to be another walker.

He collapsed, and he felt heavy bodies land on top of him before his vision went black.

 

* * *

 

When Daryl came to, he found that he was looking up at something blurry and in different shades of brown. He sucked in a breath, and his vision began to settle. He was looking at a ceiling, one made from wooden planks of some sort. He tilted his head, found he was staring at a wall that had the same appearance as the ceiling.

He blinked a couple more times, and his vision was almost completely normal. He looked down at himself. He was lying in a bed, covers pulled up to his waist, but he could feel that he was only wearing boxers beneath it, and he furrowed his brows when he could feel something around his knee. He didn't have a shirt on either. He tried to sit up more, and immediately groaned in pain.

"Hey," A voice said, startling him, and his eyes snapped to the other side of the room where a man was getting up from his chair.

Daryl's eyes flicked over him, he wore a long trench coat, several layers, had long hair falling from under a beanie, and a trimmed beard.

Daryl glared at the man, swallowing thickly, wincing a little at how dry it was, "Who are you?" he grunted, sitting up straight again and pulling the blanket further up his body, not liking that he was half-naked around a stranger, especially since he figured that the man had to of been the one to undress him in the first place.

"My friends call me Jesus," the man replied, coming to a stop at the end of the bed. "But my real name is Paul Rovia. Whatever one you prefer. You?"

Daryl licked his licks nervously, wondering where his knife was, "Daryl Dixon," he replied, choosing to ignore the stranger's odd nickname and the fact that he was finding him attractive because that is not what his brain should be focusing on.

The man smiled at him, "Daryl, hi," he said.

Daryl licked at his dry lips, "Hi," he mumbled, looking around, coming to the realization he was in a cabin.

"It's about time you woke up," Paul said, "We've been in here since last night, and it's almost noon now,"   
  
"Shit," Daryl said, surprised to know that he'd been out for so long, "How'd you get me back here?" he asked.

"I carried you,"

"You carried me?" Daryl grunted, raising a brow as he looked at the man's small frame. He must have some muscles hidden under all of those layers.

Paul nodded, "To where you went down, to just inside the tree line, my horse was waiting there. I put you up on her and then led you back here, tended to your wounds, and have been waiting for you to wake up since," he explained, sitting down on the end of the bed, folding one leg over the other.

"I didn't get bit?" Daryl asked. He was sure that he would have been with the number of walkers.

Paul shook his head, "No you didn't. You were pretty lucky," he replied.

"What's the other damage then?" he asked, relaxing a little as he had been given no sign to be afraid of the man that sat in front of him.

"You've twisted your knee I think. You had a gash on your head, and probably a concussion. Also, you're quite underweight, how long has it been since you've eaten something?" Paul replied, his brows furrowed in confusion.

"About a week," he replied.

Paul nodded and stood up from the bed, making his way over to a large pack that sat on top of an old table and began rummaging around in it, "So, how long have you been on the road for that you're in this condition?" he asked, finally pulling out a can, a spoon, and a bottle of water, then making his way back over to the bed.

"Three months," Daryl replied, eagerly taking the can of beans from the other man and popping it open and begin to eat, desperately wanting the painful emptiness in his stomach gone.

"You alone all that time?" Paul asked, sitting back down on the end of the bed.

Daryl nodded, not finding it important to mention the Claimers, "You alone?" he then asked a few moments later after he had swallowed a good couple of mouthfuls of beans, moving to open the water bottle.

"Out here, yes," Paul answered, tucking his hair behind his ears, "But I have a community, that I live in whenever I'm not out here. I'm the leader of it, my second in command, Tara, takes care of things when I'm gone," he replied.

"A community?" Daryl asked the closest thing he'd seen to a community since the outbreak was Woodbury, and he was very aware of how fucked up that place was.

Paul nodded, "Yes. The walls of the community surround a historical mansion, we have trailers, gardens, livestock, a doctor. It's quite a stable place. We could just do with some more fighters; judging by how I saw you fight, you'd be a good addition to the community," he said, blue-green eyes boring into his own.

Daryl was quiet for a few moments, pondering his options; remain on the road where he was slowly starving to death, or follow Paul to a community that could be dangerous. "You just let people you don't know inside?" he asked.

"I'm about helping people, Daryl. I'm not going to leave you out here to slowly starve to death. I'll take you back to the community, and while you won't necessarily have guards on you, you'll be monitored for a couple of days to make sure you're not a threat," Paul explained, "You can, of course, say no, and you're free to leave at any time if that's what you want,"

Daryl sighed and continued eating, "Don't look like I got any better choices," he sighed, looking at Paul for a moment.

Paul smiled at him, "The Hilltop's a couple of hours from here, so we'll leave in the morning. Give you another night to rest, your knee especially," he said.

"You said you got a doctor?" he asked.

Paul nodded, "Yeah. He can take a look at your knee when we get back. I think it's just twisted, but he can make sure," he said.

Daryl nodded in agreement; the last thing he needed was for his knee to be fucked up for the rest of his life.

"Alright," Daryl replied.

Paul gave him another smile and stood up from the bed, petting his leg and making his way back to the armchair that was sitting at the other side of the cabin, sitting himself down and opening up a book. Daryl couldn't help himself from watching the man do so as he finished eating his beans, considering himself lucky for finding someone so generous at the end of the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of things - * Jesus finds Daryl around the same time everyone else arrives in Alexandria, so no, the group has not found the hilltop yet, I just made it so that Tara was never with them.   
> * Also, I wrote this in a way that it worked as a one-shot, but I could still add to it in future. 
> 
> I worked really hard on this and I'd love kudos & comments, they make me happy & inspire me to write more!


End file.
